Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday August 23, 2013 @08:48AM
from the security-theatre dept.

An anonymous reader sends in a harrowing story from Aditya Mukerjee about his recent attempt to fly from New York to Los Angeles. After being pulled aside in the security line, he faced hours of interrogation by uncommunicative officials from several different agencies. When he was finally cleared, his airline, Jet Blue, wouldn't let him on the plane anyway. When he got home, he found evidence that it had been searched. He writes,
"It was 2:20PM by the time I was finally released from custody. My entire body was shaking uncontrollably, as if I were extremely cold, even though I wasn’t. I couldn’t identify the emotion I was feeling. Surprisingly, as far as I could tell, I was shaking out of neither fear nor anger - I felt neither of those emotions at the time. The shaking motion was entirely involuntary, and I couldn’t force my limbs to be still, no matter how hard I concentrated. In the end, JetBlue did refund my flight, but they cancelled my entire round-trip ticket. Because I had to rebook on another airline that same day, it ended up costing me about $700 more for the entire trip. .. But no matter how I’ve tried to rationalize this in the last week and a half, nothing can block out the memory of the chilling sensation I felt that first morning, lying on my air mattress, trying to forget the image of large, uniformed men invading the sanctuary of my home in my absence, wondering when they had done it, wondering why they had done it."

Hey, America,Are you proud of yourself yet? Proud of what you've become to yourself, your citizens and to the rest of the world? I can't imagine that this is what any of our founding fathers envisioned when they risked everything in order to found this country. And now look what you've made of it.

I was thinking the same thing. The country as it is today is, in my opinion, not much of something to be proud of. The government is blatantly corrupt, people that are woefully uninformed are electing the wrong people into government (or electing anyone at all for the wrong reasons), and one cannot travel quickly within the country without having basic rights violated.

It's pretty sad when the American government makes likes of Vladimir Putin look like a "good guy".

I was thinking the same thing. The country as it is today is, in my opinion, not much of something to be proud of.

Take a poll and you'll see what the majority thinks. Flags are all up and high all over!

Depends on the poll. When you start seeing polls about how "the majority of Americans xyz" where xyz is something controversial, it's to manipulate us into thinking we stand alone in the minority. The questions are asked several different ways until they get the numbers they want, and those numbers are then used to isolate and discourage the outraged.

Obviously you don't live near or have experienced "roadside safety checks" where the local gestapo indiscriminately pulls over every vehicle in a fishing-expedition for anything from forgotten safety-belts (seat belts) to that roach that's been under your seat for 15 years, or perhaps some actual rare real violation such as drunk driving, etc.

They pull vehicles over with no probable cause and subject them to searches if they twitch or sweat or the carefully trained "police dog" sits on command to please it's trainer and thus will hit on everyone, every time so they will always have cause to search you. Or they might ask you a few questions to see if you appear nervous. Well, of fucking course you're nervous, you are in severe danger of having your life fucked with, completely upset and turned upside down with a mere crook of their finger.

Also, lately they have been talking about expanding the role of TSA to harass people at sporting events, and at train and bus terminals, so the erosion of our freedom/society is not only continuing, it's expanding, or trying to.

This, all the suburban traffic cops are all dressing like SWAT-team members for either the intimidation factor, or that they think it looks "cool" and there was oodles of extra Homeland Security grant money to pay for all that neat stuff.

[Godwin Alert] This is just shy of the good old Nazi checkpoints - "Papers, Please" and actual jackboots would be the only things missing. So, yeah - even travel within supposedly safe areas of this "free" country is getting fucked up and are becoming hazardous to your rights and so-called freedom. What little you (we) have left, anyway.

I would venture to say that being put in an interrogation room for a few hours cuts into the flight-time advantage of flying.

As it is, driving a long distance vs flying sort of works out this way. If I want to visit Denver Colorado from my home here in Canada, I have a choice of travelling by car or flying.

If I drive, it's a good solid 10 - 11 hours of driving from where I live, with a moderate stop at the border to answer a couple of questions. I get to see the beauty of the country (Wyoming is particularly picturesque), and the cost in gas is pretty OK. I can stop wherever I want, eat whatever I want, make phone calls, etc. It's a very pleasant, if time consuming, way to travel. My trip back is generally just as pleasant. If I leave at a good early time in the morning, like say 4 am, I can be at my destination by 3 or 4pm that afternoon.

If I fly, I have to get to the airport a good hour and a half before my flight leaves, so that I can get in the line for check-in, and then in the line for security clearance. In the security line I have to do silly things like take off my shoes, belt, have someone poke through my carry-on to make sure I don't have large liquid containers or too much tooth-paste. At least on the Canadian side of things this is a polite and generally stress-free process.

Then for the flight itself I have to endure sitting for two and half to three hours in a big metal dong full of dead air and the sneezes and coughs of my fellow travellers. We eat some kind of awful snack thing and half of a beverage, and fsm help you if you need to use the washroom on the plane. Once you get to the other end of the journey, you have to walk at least 1-2 miles through the terminal to reach US customs, where you again have to stand in line to have someone very rude and surly check that you are good to be in the country. Then you hop the tram down to where your bags are, and negotiate the rental of a car, and then start the journey from the airport to the city proper. This adds at least another 2hours from getting off the plane to getting to where you were going to the journey. If the flight leaves at 10am, I can be at my destination by 2:30 or 3:00 pm.

In total, I've spent 6 hours to fly uncomfortably by air, get treated like a criminal, eaten terrible food, have seen nothing of the coutry's beauty, and paid more for the privilege of doing so. And I ended up at my destination only slightly ahead of when I arrive by driving.

Sure, driving took longer, but cost less, gave me more freedom, less hassle, and more of a sense of seeing new places. I'll take driving over the experience of flight anytime.

That is why states need to have a majority of the power. It essentially makes them 50 counties with unifying treaties. The closer the government is to the people, the more likely that those people are under a rule that they agree with.

That is why states need to have a majority of the power. It essentially makes them 50 counties with unifying treaties. The closer the government is to the people, the more likely that those people are under a rule that they agree with.

Tell that to black people, circa 60+ years ago. Our federal system has done much to blunt or prevent the worst of tyranny of the majority over its lifetime.

None of those are examples in which the federal government heavily resisted state autonomy to make such a decision, with the exception of the Fugitive Slave Act. Thus, none of them are things done in the name of state's rights.

These are the ones that pop into my head, but I'm sure I could list of similar examples all day long. State law has been at the forefront of just about every major civil rights issue in our nation's history.

They've also been at the far other side. Many of the Southern states refused to ratify the 19th Amendment and led the charge against women's suffrage; several never even signed it until the late 20th century. Many states (also again in the South) have amended their own constitution to deny gays the right to marry.

Do we even need to talk about slavery and race relations? Except maybe to acknowledge the nadir of American race relations [wikipedia.org] post-Reconstruction? How about California's "Foreign Miner's Tax" of 1850 or the "Anti-Coolie Law" of 1862 to go after the Chinese? (19th century California's hate-on for the Chinese is frequently forgotten.) Or how about their "Greaser Act" against Mexicans from 1855?

You also have wonders like Texas leading the way in 1883 on the convict-lease system to use prisoners as slave labor. You know, the chain-gangs of old.

Betcha won't though. Posting "I'm considering leaving" on Slashdot is the internet equivalent of a passive-aggressive note on an office fridge. You won't do anything and we all know it.

Not to mention, being a pussy and fleeing doesn't fix anything. Look at how the US and NZ governments colluded to spy on and share information about Kim Dotcom, for allegedly violating copyright. If you think that running and hiding will somehow free you from the authoritarian grip of the terrorist organization known as the US government, you're a fucking imbecile.

There's only one way to fix this, and that's to fight it, any and every way we can think of.

There's only one way to fix this, and that's to fight it, any and every way we can think of.

That's very noble and idealistic of you. Let's start a list of things that need to change.

1. The takeover of the Commission on Presidential Debates by the Democratic and Republican parties in 1988 needs to be reversed. No political party should have a say in who is and is not allowed to debate. That control should be restored to a non-political entity such as the League Of Women Voters, who had that responsibility before refusing to sanction the 1988 elections on the basis that the 2 parties would commit a fraud on American voters. This will make sure that more voices are heard and that people have more options to choose from. I'm sick of this red state vs blue state shit, I want to see yellow states, green states, purple states, whatever. We need more choices and more opinions to be heard.

2. The influence of money needs to be removed from government. I propose that all elected officials, political parties, or campaigns are barred from receiving anything of value from any lobbyist organization or any corporation. Individuals are allowed to donate whatever they want, and those donations should be made public so that the public can know who is influencing the elections. If an elected official receives anything of value from a lobbyist or corporation then they should be removed from office and the organization that donated should be fined proportionally to the value of the donation (e.g. 10 times the value). Lobbyists can still exist, but they need to lobby with words and not money or services or other gifts.

3. The notion of corporations as people needs to be explicitly disallowed. Corporations are not people. If corporations were people then we would call them people instead of corporations. Corporations as a whole are not allowed to donate to any political group. Donations must be made by individuals.

4. We need term limits for all members of congress. Members of congress are supposed to be private citizens that leave the private sector in order to serve the public, and once their service is over they return to the private sector. Congress should have a 4-term limit across both the House and Senate. You can serve 4 terms as a Representative, but then you are not eligible to be a Senator. You can serve 2 terms in each. Whatever the combination, once you serve 4 terms in congress you are done. The notion of a career politician needs to be eliminated. Politicians are there to serve the public, not themselves.

5. Elected representatives should be prohibited from participating in any stock market or speculative trading, with the possible exception of physical assets such as real estate (but not commodity futures). Again, politicians are there to serve the public, not to enrich themselves. Serving the public is a position of sacrifice, not a position of prestige. You're there because you want to make a difference, not stay there until you retire.

That's a pretty short list, maybe other people have more add. The problem starts with the legislative branch, real reform cannot happen unless the legislative branch is truly working for the people. So, how do you suggest that we fight in order to make these necessary reforms happen? It's pretty easy to post online about it, isn't it? But there's a problem when we have a federal government that asserts the right to kill anyone across the globe for reasons that are secret; that has the ability to spy on virtually anyone they want to spy on; and that can redefine the word "terrorist" at will to make it mean whatever they want it to mean. How are we going to overcome that when virtually the entire legislative branch wants things to stay more or less just as they are?

Not to mention, being a pussy and fleeing doesn't fix anything.

Well that's not entirely true. It fixes things for me, doesn't it? Does it help the rest of Americans? No, it doesn'

It seems like if I want to make a movie badmouthing Hillary or Romney, I should be able to to so without risking my entire personal savings or property when we get sued

Why? Why should you be allowed to avoid that risk? Corporate officers should be personally responsible for the actions of the corporation as a whole, and they should make their decisions with that accountability in mind.

There is little evidence that corporate donations have much influence on election outcomes.

I have two things to say about that statement. First, the reason that there is little evidence is because of a lack of disclosure, not because there is actually no influence. A corporation can anonymously donate as much money as they want to various organizations, and those organizations can spend that money to specifically and directly benefit a particular candidate, all the way up until the actual election. And they don't need to tell you shit. And second, the presence or lack of evidence of corporations seeking to influence elections (and thus gain favorable legislation) is separate from the actual point of whether or not it should be allowed at all. I believe that it should not be allowed. It's fine if corporations want to donate to social welfare groups, but those groups cannot pass that money onto political candidates (right now political organizations can register themselves as social welfare groups, and they do not have to disclose their donors. Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS is one such group).

I think there are already significant restrictions.

The legislative branch tends to not enjoy passing laws that limit what they are able to do, and they tend to enjoy voting to repeal or amend existing laws. You realize that you are relying on the people who pass laws to pass laws that limit how they can make money, right? How much support do you think there is for those laws? If you would like to cite specific laws to limit how congress can make money that are currently in effect, then that would help your position.

The real solution is much simpler: devolve power (and money) back from the federal level to state and local institutions. Everything becomes much more manageable, cheaper, and more accountable at the state and local level.

I'm not sure that stripping the federal government of its powers is quite as easy as you think. In fact, promoting that might even make you start to look like a needle in the NSA's haystack. This is the problem, and this problem cannot be fixed without fixing the problems in the legislative branch first. You can't strip the federal government of its power if the legislative branch wants everything to stay the same. The legislative branch is the second piece of the solution, after taking our election process back from the people who are in power.

I own a passport and have traveled to 38 countries on 5 continents. I can't think of any place that offers more freedom than the US. Is our government more invasive than in the past? Yes. Should we change that? Absolutely. Is there someplace with both the same level of security and a less invasive government? No. I am hard pressed to even identify a less invasive government.

We have our problems, but it certainly can be worse. The only place I might consider less intrusive is Canada, but even then it is close and they make up for it with an absurd pile of regulations.

Get rid of the TSA? AbsolutelyReign in the NSA? Should be our top priority.There is someplace better? Get real.

Bullshit, I did around 26 countries (started to lose track) across 4 continents last year alone and the most invasive country I visited was Bosnia, the second most invasive country was the USA, all the others were amazing.

Sure America has freedoms to do some stuff you can't else where (like own an assault rifle) but if owning an assault rifle is actually the most important thing in the world to you, you're doing it wrong.

I own a passport and have traveled to 38 countries on 5 continents. I can't think of any place that offers more freedom than the US. Is our government more invasive than in the past? Yes. Should we change that? Absolutely. Is there someplace with both the same level of security and a less invasive government? No. I am hard pressed to even identify a less invasive government.

How many of those countries have an NDAA and allow their citizens to be militarily imprisoned without a trial?

Either that or he thinks that the invasiveness of government is directly proportional to the tax rate. This is obviously false: If you have country A who taxes at 50%, and spends all that money on great roads and rail and health care and national parks and aid for the poor, that's less invasive than country B who taxes at 20% and spends all that money on police, surveillance of citizens, jails, propaganda, and the military.

Depends on who you are and what you care about. Want to freely insult people? Germany's the wrong place. Want to have an abortion without being harassed? Germany is a good place. Want to harass, intimidate and lie to make people not have an abortion? Wrong place. Want to start a business and hire and fire people depending on your needs? Wrong place. Want to have children without being afraid of losing your job etc.? Slightly better place than the US but not comparable with e.g. Sweden. Want to have judges that care about justice and sanity, and a constitutional court with teeth that takes your freedoms seriously? Mostly a good place. Want courts that follow the letter of the law to the dot, no matter what was meant? Mostly wrong place. Want to have the freedom to own and use a gun? Really wrong place.A lot of "freedoms" are one person's right to do one thing vs. one person's right to either do another thing or have a chance at a good life. Which counts more in which cases differs a lot between Germany and the US.

Good appeal, but please tone down the idealistic stuff about the forefathers and such - it's a bit like quoting the bible. Gets attention, but is nowhere near infallible and therefore not suited for a proper argument.

Don't compare a document crafted by a number of real people who had been-there-seen-that to a religious work widely regarded as ancient history of even fiction. Principles are the foundation of all good and effective constructs - they should never be abandoned.

What the heck are you one about?The bible is a collection of stories, what stories go in it is decided by each branch of christianity. They vary quite a bit. The constitution is one document written at one time and not a collection of oral traditions only written down centuries later.

That's one of the other things that are wrong with America, too much hype about ideals that have long ceased to be relevant.

This story shows just how relevant they still are and they are only going to get more and more relevant as our society descends into a police state in every way possible. This sort of thing is precisely why some of us dislike government in general and large governments in particular. Power corrupts. Always. And eventually you end up with a fascist tyranny like we currently have in the US. The ideals of people like John Locke and Thomas Jefferson have never been more relevant than they are today.

If your government is corrupt it is because the generally apathetic USA voters are quite happy with it that way. If they weren't happy they would stop voting in the same people.

In Canada the voters completely wipe out political parties that existed for generations if the politicians piss us off. There is no Social Credit in BC now, there is no Conservative party federally (well the PC is sort of their bastard offspring with the Reform party).

Stop voting for just the Republicans and Democrats. Put a stop to Gerrymandering. Put a stop to ear marks. Get better informed. Actually get off your butt and vote.

The terrorists exist, and you've probably seen them already (on the news or in other media). They're a small fringe group whose members are, by and large, not particularly competent or capable. They got extremely lucky once, but even counting that, they're about as much of a threat to individuals, the United States, or civilization in general as home accidents and bad weather.

One of the best descriptions I can recall reading of terrorists was along the lines of, "criminals who want to be warriors". Terror is probably best handled in a low-key manner by law enforcement. The "War on Terra" has given them exactly what they want, and was probably the worst possible response. America's over-reaction to 9/11 and the terrorism "threat" in general is doing far, far more damage than any terrorist could directly do in their wildest dreams.

Don't you know all the terrorists are currently residing in Washington D.C. and regularly appear on TV

All kidding aside I figure there must be very few actual terrorists of which 99.9999% don't reside within the US given how soft many targets are in the US. The few "real" ones out there seem to like to make videos and send them to foreign news outlets. These frequently feature the leader yammering about The Great Satan (tm) and have a couple of masked men behind him with AKs or rocket launchers. Given that these individuals are far off in some other country and couldn't get to the US the pose no real direct threat. They do however serve as great propaganda piece to allow the massive erosion of rights and expansion of government. So I guess they do pose a pretty good indirect threat to the citizenry of the US.

Yeah, but the didn't start attacking the US until we got our military fully involved in defending our oil supplies. Even though they weren't ours.

Biggest user of said supply. It is an interest of the US. Yes, it's an interest of the companies that sell it, which is in turn an interest of the US govt for wealth and control.

That being said, this isn't new stuff here. The US did not have the creation rights to defending it's interests. It's been done by every nation/culture past and present. This is how it goes, someone/people have control over a resource and will defend it until it's no longer needed. The Egyptians did it. The Norse did it, the Chinese did it, the Russians did it, the French did it, Native American Tribes did it, and so on, and so forth. (note: Different resources (water, trade routes, land, buffalo herds, etc, but waging war over resources is not new)

I'm not justifying or defending it, however that has been the way of the world for thousands of years. And guess what, it will remain that way until someone figures out a better way.

On hallmark of a civilized democratic society is the freedom to travel. One way to insure that a populous remains subservient and ignorant is to limit travel. This is because it limits experiences. For instance, if kids stay in the square couple miles that define their neighborhood, they may never learn there are other options, and that people do live in luxury. I recall attending a summer retreat with a guy from the Texas valley and how surprised he was at how big the houses were in around the the retreat. This is why many high school will encourage students to go away for college, which I agree with unless it imposes huge debts.

In any case, while the argument can be made he could have driven or taken the bus instead of flown, and so travel is not infringed, there are cases when air travel is the only viable option. Therefore the security theater that has popped up over the past decade can only be construed as an attack on our right to travel, and, along with the job creation program called military action and surveillance, transform us into a citizenry whose ability to grow and become education is much less that the previous generation.

The problem here is the level of expertise of the people responding to this situation. It's like these people are DMV rejects. They do not have the training or even basic knowledge needed to deal with this situation AT ALL.

The TSA is an employment program for low income, low education punks. That said, do you know how many false positives the explosives residue detector generates? I do not. I could google it, but I am fairly certain that most of the testing is done by the makers of the machines, and hence untrustable by me. Maybe the guy ate one to many airport bean burritos and had a methan riddled fart trapped in his pants that set off the detector.

Maybe, just maybe some TSA bullie saw hindu clothes and some headgear and said let me fuck with this rag head, and pushed the little button that makes the machine light up regardless of whether residue is present.

This guy got a raw deal. Hell, at LAX I was running late for my plane with my family and had some luggage that had tested positively for bomb residue just a week earlier (I was working at an explosives facility...). I, of course, got stopped for more luggage swiping because I had recently tested positive. While in the plexiglass cube surrounded by TSA agents I yell at my wife to take all of my luggage, everything except my shoes and wallet because they're going to test positive for bomb residue. A TSA agent was literally standing next to me as I'm telling my wife to take my stuff because it has bomb residue on it, and no one cared.

Then they didn't even test me because it appeared that all I was travelling with was a wallet and flip flops. Shouldn't that also be some kind of warning sign?

This reminded me of last year's massacre [wikipedia.org] at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, where the gunman thought he was attacking a mosque.
Not that Muslims deserve to be targeted for hate crimes and unconstitutional detention any more than non-Muslims, but detaining a Hindu on suspicion of being a radical Muslim [wikipedia.org]? It would be like detaining an Episcopalian on suspicion of being an IRA terrorist. After all, Whitey all looks the same...

Actually it would be like detaining an Irish pagan on suspicion of being an IRA terrorist. Hinduism and Islam are entirely unrelated to each other. Episcopalians and Catholics on the other hand might as well belong to the same religion.. Oh wait, they do.
Ironic how the kernel of your post was about ignorance.

Notice that he's already receiving different treatment, despite absolutely zero evidence that he's any kind of threat to anyone.

“You can leave, but I’m keeping your bag.”

Something that would have been interesting to try at this point: "Ok, then. I presume there's a procedure for handling bags you've collected in this fashion, let's fill out the necessary paperwork and do everything by the book, and I'll need to be kept informed about which office to contact for retrieving such evidence once you've discovered that there's nothing criminal about it."

“What is your religion?”

This whole line of questioning is so obviously in violation of the Free Exercise clause it's not even funny.

I've felt that feeling to a much smaller degree when I found out that my identity was stolen and a credit card was opened in my name. We go about our lives confident that some things are safe. When we leave the house/apartment in the morning, we're confident that everything will be there when we get back. When we walk down the street, we're confident that our body won't be violated by some random stranger. When we go about our daily lives, we're confident that someone isn't - at that moment - opening lines of credit that will financially ruin us.

We're confident about all this because the alternative is living in terror of assaults from all angles at every second and there's no way a sane mind could deal with this.

So we convince ourselves that we (and our belongings, credit, loved ones, etc) are safe.

And then something like this happens which shatters our illusion of safety. Mine was a bit abstract (your credit score isn't exactly a physical entity) and was caught early so the impact wasn't as big. The author's impact was worse because his body safety illusion was shattered, his concept of having the freedom to move as he pleased was destroyed, and the safety of his personal effects was violated. Rape victims probably feel something similar. We don't really have a word that accurately describes it because it isn't a feeling we feel often enough.

Oh and if you think you don't have an illusion of safety because you've read stories like this and know it can happen - you're wrong. Even though you read the stories, part of your brain rationalizes away the terror of the situation as "things that happen to other people" and you maintain your internal safety illusion until something like this happens.

An uncorroborated story, retold in amazing detail (he remembers almost everything said to him so clearly that he's comfortable using quotation marks for dialog), complete with a clever protagonist who's at the mercy of idiots (the Jet Blue agent who, despite working at one of the busiest airports in the US seems never to have encountered anyone who isn't a WASP, the TSA drones who think they're working in the Hotel California, the cops who can't read dates on an ID card and mistake venture capital with capitol one credit cards because, y'know, they're a bunch of blue-collar dummies. Luckily though, our protagonist is clever enough to be able to guess their source of confusion immediately). Then, the chilling conclusion, where he returns home to find almost everything exactly in place, except for the missing photograph. Why would whatever shadowy TLA actually take a photograph off the wall? If they were interested in what it showed, might it not just occur to them to, I dunno, take a picture of it themselves? Then there's the procedural inconsistencies...the NYPD officer can't even be present when he's patted down "because when we pat people down, it’s to lock them up." Really? NYC, the focus of the "Stop and Frisk" controversy actually has officers who believe they can't do a pat-down unless it's during an arrest? And going back to the uncorroborated nature of the story, he would have at least had some voicemails from himself during this ordeal, except once again the universe conspired against him and when he called his parents, "Unfortunately, my mom’s voicemail was full, and my dad had never even set his up".

I'm not going to go so far as to say that the blogger here is lying, but there's more than enough here to make me very skeptical.

You have a very good point. Someone posts a scary story. Story is posted and people go ape shit about loss of freedoms, discrimination, etc. But how do we know its true? I am not dismissing it but look at the frenzy of replies where everyone read a story and did not stop to think "is this true"? Same thing happens on facebook where people share scary or touching stories with little proof of their truth.

Goes to show you the power the Internet can have to sway public opinion. We live in an age where people have mostly abandoned critical thinking and take things for face value. And the internet allows such false stories to spread like wildfire across the globe. In the old days such stories were old wives tales and were local to villages or towns. Reminds me of a story someone shared on facebook about a secret meeting between record execs and prison execs to make gangsta rap more popular so blacks would emulate the music and fill the prisons up to make the prison companies more money. The kicker was the storyteller was a supposed attendee of the meeting but was so afraid for his life that he refused to name any names (including his own) or locations. No proof whatsoever and hundreds of comments were posted from people who believed the story and expressed outrage and anger. Its really sad.

A friend of mine set off the explosives detectors while trying to fly home for spring break. He hadn't been in contact with any cleaning products or fertilizers or anything like that, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out what the culprit could be.

In the end, it turned out it was his sweat-absorbing socks. I'm not a chemist, so I don't know precisely what it was in sweat that can set off their detectors (ammonia, maybe?), but for everyone's sake I hope TSA had some good hazmat disposal protocols for those things.

Of course, my friend is white, so no back-alley interrogation for him.

Nope! It turns out, Senator McCarthy was right. There really were Communists in the State Department.

This forces us to re-evaluate the entire phrase of "McCarthyism" as the current (wrong) meaning implies falsehood. Please stop using this phrase, it is deprecated.

It is useful as ever. McCarthy took the allegation "there are communist spies", expanded that to "all communists are spies" and finally conducted show trials to condemn more or less random people, all to boost his own career. This is, of course, entirely analogous to this story: "there are muslim terrorists" -> "all muslims are terrorists" -> "this guy might be a muslim! Break down his door!"

It's a tactic with a long and bloody pedigree. McCarthy was simply a less capable Hitler wannabe. And so are the current anti-muslim fearmongers.

According to his accusers, Mr. Xenu is guilty of extreme war crimes including mass murder by the use of nuclear weapons. There is no statute of limitations on such crimes and if his accusers are saying anything that might be corroborated enough to trigger a police or even customs investigation, that's grounds for adding him to the no fly lists. We also seem to have allegations that Mr. Xenu touched somebody's thetans, and I'm shocked, shocked I say, that apparently nobody has called Chris Hansen with these claims. I fully support adding Mr. Xenu to the no fly lists. (Particularly if the airplane in question resembles a gold plated DC-10).
In addition, Mr. Xenu is alleged to be a space alien, and in the case where I have seen him hanging out outside the Scientology campus in Clearwater Fla. he certainly looked like one. and I have a degree in recognizing space aliens from the University of thousands of hours of Stargate-SG1, Farscape, and Trek. Body cavity searches thus constitute data of priceless scientific value. We ignore people's rights for everything else, why not for science?

You realize, that Muslim extremists are to Islam what the Westboro Baptist Church, Tripura, Assam, Odisha, anti-abortion bombers, and Hutaree are for Christianity, right? Sickening examples that leave the majority just as disgusted as you, the outside observer.

It is about numbers. You can read books by Muslim women talking about what they see as dominant trends in their culture, in places like Egypt, Gaza, and where Islamic culture spreads to Europe and America. It isn't as simple as "extremists are a tiny minority". I also see it personally with friends who come from Muslim families -- despite being born in the West, they cannot extricate themselves from the old culture without being completely ostracised from their family. Many would rather conform than leave. And to do it they'll live a double life. Anyway like I say, read what Moslem women like Nonie Darwish, Ghazal Omid, Qanta Ahmed.

A sample from Darwish: "We often hear that “moderate” Muslims are the majority and that terrorist supporters are a minority fringe group. However, when genuine Islamic moderate leaders stand firm against terrorism, we do not see majority Muslim support for their views. To the contrary, such “moderates” shout the speakers down, condemn, and threaten them."

Anyway this is a separate point to racial profiling by security services.

Based on polling, between 10 and 20% of Muslims are "radicalized". That represents at least 200,000,000 people. They are following their scripture's teachings. Not surprisingly, there are Muslim terrorist attacks in the Middle East almost daily. Pakistan is particularly hard hit, and most victims of Muslim violence are other Muslims.

The "Christians" that you've mentioned there are not following the teachings in their scriptures, and they number in the hundreds total. They've killed a few people. On average, they've killed fewer people in the last 100 years than the Muslims kill in a day.

I've actually seen a group of Phelpsies. I've interacted with them. A friend of mine had a bogus police report filed against him by them.

You, on the other hand, have never met a Muslim extremist. In fact, although I don't know you from Adam's off ox, I feel confident that you don't actually know any Muslims personally at all -- or if you do, you're unaware of their religion because there was no reason for the subject to come up, particularly when talking with a guy like you. Would you want to talk to you about religion? I'm feeling dirty right now.

You mean a country that had a democratically elected leader until the US and UK organized a coup [wikipedia.org] and then spent several years training secret police [wikipedia.org] to murder and torture any secularists who didn't support the friendly puppet that they put in place? What do you have left when you have paid for all of the secularists to be killed? Let's be entirely honest about the history there. I admit that that country does have a grudge against us, but they have a really, REALLY good reason for it.

So he's guilty of the crime of "flying while having a name that someone thinks sounds Muslim."

Airport Security: Just when you think they've gone as low as they can go, they dig deep and go lower! Congrats TSA (and other agencies since home searching isn't something the TSA does) for continually coming in below our already lowered our expectations.

Since the the entire religion is based on the koran and states that all non-muslims are infidels i think his statement is accurate to within round off error.

On a less accurate note I have been led to believe that the crazies are the ones running most of the show while the sane ones don't have the intestinal fortitude to stop them. Kinda like our congress, so much crazy crap is going on and so little being done about it by the sane ones.

Since the the entire religion is based on the koran and [it] states that all non-muslims are infidels

No, it doesn't. The Koran distinguishes believers on one extreme, infidels on the other, and "people of the book" in the middle, who must be protected by believers even though they're (thought of as being) in error. Christians and Jews are explicitly cited as "people of the book". Afterwards Buddhists, Hinduists and others were added to the list.

By the way: traditional Muslims in Egypt have been helping protect Christian churches from the fundamentalist Christian-hating ones. In particular, they've been protecting Coptic Christian churches, the same Coptics that both Catholics and Orthodox Christians were persecuting several centuries ago and who had to flee from Europe and find refuge there, in Islamic Egypt, back in the day fundamentalist Islam hadn't been invented yet (this one's an English Puritanism-inspired 18th-century innovation).

What? You thought either preached something different? No, they just don't put into practice. But that it's in the book all the same, it is.

How old was Muhammad's wife? How old must a person be to be wed under Islamic law? How old must that wife be to have sex?

Of legal age at the time. Of legal age under said law.:-)

What? You think our Western laws aren't arbitrary either? Try talking to someone from 3613 CE an see what he thinks of your morality and the laws you think of as just. Just as a matter of perspective I'll say this: a radical progressive of the 1920's would feel welcome among the extreme right wing of the GOP of today. Ditto for us all in 100 years, never mind in 1600.

I think I can safely say that's an unfair representation of the text you quoted? I mean, people who say that the Koran says to kill non-believers are off base(it does say to kill ex-believers, which isn't much better), Shariah law(the "accepted" interpretation of the Koran's rules) suggests a tax on non-believers is the most that can be demanded.

"Actually the flaw is yours. Did the fact that not all members of the Nazi party were fully committed to "the cause" make that group any less dangerous? No, it did not."

But it did mean that we didn't prosecute all Nazis for war crimes just because they were Nazis.

Also, newsflash, many major religions support the cause of converting others or killing them. Including Christians and Jews. A clear majority of Muslims think that's an outdated concept just as much as Christians and Jews do too. It's just some relatively tiny sects that still support it (see Westboro Baptist Church).

I get the feeling these so-called random searches are from an NSA-built profile. Someone with a similar name or nearby location made some references online, and this guy's getting gloveloved because some computer flagged him as a "possible".

I got flagged once as a "possible" back when I was in school. Some guy robbed a bank and escaped by bike. I happened to be wearing a blue vest, same ass the suspect.

Didn't realize LE went from using face recognition to ass recognition. Makes sense since you usually will see criminals running away from you so it's helpful to be able to ID them from behind. Though from your experience it seems the technology still has a ways to go.

I have this image of a group of security specialists standing over a table with a crockpot, package of frozen chicken legs, carrots, onions and bullion cubes saying, "Put out a BOLO for an elderly lady with an apron. Approach with caution."

The guy's Indian, and to your average dimwitted, racist TSA goon that's just another variety of "terr'ist sand-nigger." They're not even smart enough to be racist properly.

This led to him getting an enhanced pat-down with an explosive swab test on his pants which came back positive for some unknown reason, and everything snowballed from there like some kind of comedy skit, where everything he did and said was interpreted as matching the profile of a terrorist.

Now this raises the question, is this how they treat anyone who they think is a Muslim? Explosive swab test and then run them through the wringer if it tests positive, complete with searching their home?

This is why I don't fly in clothes that I've handled gasoline or worked on cars in, you never know what might have been absorbed into the fibers.

The guy's Indian, and to your average dimwitted, racist TSA goon that's just another variety of "terr'ist sand-nigger." They're not even smart enough to be racist properly.

Yeah, that's basically the level of dumbness I've expected from people blinded by terrorism-induced paranoia. I mean, I guess I can kinda sympathize; the world is getting pretty fucking scary, but a large chunk of that is precisely because everyone's walking around so crazy and paranoid!

Funny story: Back in like 2002, I was living in an apartment over an Indian restaurant, and we had an earthquake— now this was in Vermont, mind you, and I'm from New Jersey so like, earthquake, what? —and I swear to god, my first thought was "Oh shit, some fucking rednecks couldn't tell Indians from Arabs and bombed the restaurant!" (Not one of my finest moments; sprawled out prone on the living room floor, looking like Garfield in a car window.)

Explosive test comes up positive in an airport and you wonder why they react strongly? You truly are a fuckwit.

A few years ago, I got a new computer bag. I flew with it a couple of times, but the first time that the bag was randomly selected for a swab test, it came up positive. I got lots of questions (in the public area). Eventually I had to provide some contact and other information and was allowed on my way. A few flights later, the bag was selected again and came up positive again. Got the same kind of questions and had to complete the same form again. After that I stopped flying with that bag.

I was not interrogated in a private room and I wasn't kept off of the plane by the airline. Then again, I am pasty white and I don't fly Jet Blue.

Silver nitrate in the film will set off the detectors they use - as will a wide variety of hand lotions and even perfumes.
Other things that will set off the detector/test if you handle your lugage at any time while contaminated with them include:

The list goes on, but the point is, even transporting your lugage in the same trunk as you carried potting soil in 2 months ago is going to get you flagged as a positive. After that, it's going down hill for you.

Prosser: But the plans were on display.Arthur Dent: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar.Prosser: That's the display department.Arthur Dent: With a torch.Prosser: The lights had probably gone.Arthur Dent: So had the stairs.Prosser: But you did see the notice, didn't you?Arthur Dent: Oh, yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign outside the door saying "Beware of the Leopard." Ever thought of going into advertising?

You got the wrong Arthur Dent quote - should have been this:
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?""Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course.""But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard might get in.”

I think opening a newspaper recently, and following anything happening regarding the NSA, Snowden, Manning, Greenwald, etc. might provide you with some circumstantial evidence that would indicate that the scenario described is plausible. Hell, even if it isn't true, I'm angry that things have gotten to the point that I can believe it. Further, now that Clapper has gone in front Congress and been caught lying without repercussions, even a flat denial from officials doesn't cut it for me anymore. This is a problem for our now seemingly nominal democracy. I heard a great line from Ron Paul - I may misquote: "The truth becomes treason in an empire of lies". We're there.

Fuck you. Flying is a necessary part of a normal life. Just because you have decided you don't need it doesn't make it a luxury. People with family abroad, jobs that are in different cities, or maybe someone who wants to see parts of the world and expand their mind beyond their backyard.

The market-based solution of boycott isn't always the solution! Sometimes you need laws to protect minorities.

Bullshit, he tested positive for chemicals which are also used in explosives. That doesn't warrant holding someone for longer than it takes to determine they don't have explosives on them or in their luggage. On top of that they then apparently went and searched his appartment, because he had chemical residues on his person.

I've worked in close proximity to military working dogs that did bomb sniffing. Their training is such that when in doubt they sit and indicate a chemical. I can't tell you how many times I saw the base I was at go into a temporary lockdown which they searched a truck more thoroughly because a dog sat down. It doesn't mean that it isn't a valid form of detection but that false positives are far more likely than you might think and should be handled in a professional manner.